


The Visit

by codswallop



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Drunkenness, Eventual Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, M/M, Minor Injuries, Patrick backstory, Shower Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-11 10:52:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19108183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codswallop/pseuds/codswallop
Summary: Patrick's best friend from high school comes to town, and does not hit it off with David.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pun/gifts).



> Set sometime during season 5, post-Rock On and pre-The Hike.
> 
> Story idea by Pun, whose fault this whole thing is; beta by Fitofpique, who is very patient with me. <3

“Yes!” Patrick shouted suddenly at his laptop, in the middle of an otherwise peaceful Sunday morning. David paid no attention at first; it was certain to be sports-related, and he was right in the middle of stage 3A of his weekend exfoliation mask. “I can’t believe it! TK’s coming!”

Patrick looked up, beaming, appearing to expect some kind of positive reaction from David, who remained nonplussed.

“I’m sorry, what’s coming? Teacake?”

“No, _T. K._ ,” Patrick repeated more slowly, still aglow. “My best friend from high school! Tim Kwan! I told you about TK. He’s coming to visit! He’s finally, actually—God, I haven’t seen him in, what, five or six years now.”

“Wow,” David said, trying to sound enthused. Well, he wasn’t _un_ enthused. “That’s great. That’s really...wow. When?”

“Next Friday, for the weekend. Will there be room at the motel, can you find out? If there isn’t, I can borrow an air mattress from Ray, probably.”

“I’m sure there will be,” David said quickly. “Um. Does TK...know about me? About us?”

“Yes. Absolutely, yes,” Patrick assured him. “It’s fine. He’s completely cool with it. He found out from Rachel, actually. I hadn’t really been in touch with him for a couple of years, but he and I started emailing again last month after he ran into her in Toronto—he lives there now. Didn’t I tell you all this at some point?”

It was entirely possible that he had. “Maybe,” David said. “Okay, that’s...good, I’m glad. I mean, not that it wouldn’t have been fine if he didn’t know. I don’t expect you to have to tell the whole world about me or anything.” He was doing something strange with his hands, he realized suddenly, and brought them up to his face, touching lightly to see if the mask was dry yet.

“I do want to tell the whole world about you,” Patrick said, and got up and came over to him, putting his arms around David’s waist. “Maybe I’ll take out an ad in my hometown paper. Or the _Star._ Or both. Wow, that stuff smells really intense from this close up.”

“Tea tree oil,” David explained. “Don’t kiss me yet. I’m rinsing it off in four minutes and thirty seconds.”

Patrick kissed him anyway, getting tea tree mask smeared onto his own face and compromising stage 3A, but it was hard to be very annoyed.

“Anyway,” Patrick said, once he’d cleaned himself up, “Even if I didn’t want to tell the whole world, which I do, I would have told TK. He’s a great guy. I really think you’ll like him.”

“How are you going to entertain him around here for an entire weekend, though?”

Patrick shrugged. “TK was always pretty good at making his own fun. We’ll just catch up, go for a hike, maybe. Drink some beer. Watch sports. Hang around the store and bother you.” 

“Mmm, sounds _great._ ” David tried to remember what Patrick had told him about this TK character in the past. “Isn’t he the one you said had a sense of humour just like yours, only louder and more so?”

“You’ve got to meet him,” Patrick said, laughing. “It’s much better on him, trust me.”

“I do trust you,” David said, smiling back. It was nice, anyway, to see Patrick so happy. He didn’t talk about his hometown much; it would be interesting, probably, to meet someone else from there...someone who hadn’t been engaged to him. David might get some good stories about Patrick as a kid, maybe put a few more puzzle pieces about his early life into place. “If he appreciates you, I’ll definitely get along with him. And you deserve a fun weekend.”

“We both do,” Patrick agreed. “Has it been four and a half minutes yet? I don’t want to get any more of that gunk on me, but I was just getting warmed up there.”

“I’m sorry, ‘gunk’?” David said. “ _Gunk_. Uh-huh. Okay, just for that? Five more minutes.”

*

TK was due to drive in sometime late in the afternoon on the following Friday, and Patrick had given him directions to come straight to the store. It was an abnormally low-traffic day at Rose Apothecary that afternoon, which David regretted. He would have liked the store to appear busy and thriving, for one thing, and for another, it would have given both of them something more to do while they were waiting around. 

“Nervous?” David asked, when Patrick went to go and check the fridge for anything outdated for the third time that day. 

“Not really,” Patrick said. “Just kind of...keyed up, you know?” David wasn’t sure he believed him. It had to be weird, he imagined, even if this TK said he was cool with it—being cool in theory over email was one thing, but being cool in person with the very colourful proof in the flesh that your former small-town best bro was now seriously involved with another man...that was something else. Patrick had to feel it. David didn’t want to challenge him on it, though. 

“Are _you_ nervous?” Patrick asked, turning the tables on him. As he did.

“A little,” David admitted.

“Don’t be,” Patrick told him. “He’s going to like you. And you look great.” 

“Well, I mean,” said David. “That’s still a given.” 

It had taken David a long time to decide what to wear that morning, actually. At first he’d thought he’d try something toned-down: a nice neutral black on black with no frills. Then he thought he’d go with the most fashion-forward, eyebrow-raising pieces he owned, just to put it out there who and what he was with no apologies. He didn’t want to embarrass Patrick, though, so he ended up with something in between: black jeans with artfully torn knees, and the leopard-print sweater he’d worn the day after he kissed Patrick for the first time, which he now considered something of a good-luck talisman. 

“Hey, I think that’s him!” Patrick said, as a red Mini Cooper pulled up next to the store, and thirty seconds later a _ridiculously_ handsome and athletic-looking Asian man burst through the front door shouting “PB!” and leapt up onto Patrick, sending them both sprawling to the floor, laughing.

“Wow, okay, hello,” David said, and the guy rolled off Patrick and sat up enough to extend a hand for him to shake.

“You must be the famous David Rose,” he said, with a million-dollar magazine-model smile. His grip was distressingly firm. “I’ve been dying to meet you.” 

“Um, likewise,” David said. “You would be the famous TK, I assume.”

“Tim, actually. This moron here is the only one who calls me TK. Isn’t that right, PB?” He pinned Patrick back down to the ground as he was starting to get up and gave him a performatively loud kiss on the cheek. “Am I still allowed to do this now that you’re gay? It’s not gonna make you pop a boner, is it?”

“Wow,” David said again. “Okay.”

“Jesus, TK,” Patrick protested, shoving him away, still laughing. “I led David to believe you were civilized. Kind of thought you might have matured a little in the past decade or so.”

“Never. Don’t believe a single thing he told you about me,” Tim said, glancing up at David again, and went to tackle Patrick one more time, but Patrick dodged him, laughing again, and got to his feet.

“Come on, man, this is my place of business,” Patrick said. “Get off the floor. What do you think of our store, anyway?” ( _Our_ store, David thought, with a slight glow of satisfaction, even though he usually liked to insist that the store was completely his.)

“Okay, okay. I’m just excited to see you again, PB. It’s been a minute.” Tim leapt up and glanced around Rose Apothecary. He was tall, taller than David, broad shouldered and narrow hipped. His jeans and plain white t-shirt were off the rack, but an expensive rack, well cut. “Classy,” he pronounced, turning his attention back to Patrick. “I know _you_ didn’t have anything to do with the design.”

“Yeah, you got me there. I’m more on the business side of things. The classiness is all down to David.” Patrick looked at David as if he were hoping to include him in the conversation. 

“No doubt,” Tim agreed. “So where is this one-star motel you’ve got me staying at? Come show me the way, and then you can give me the ten-cent tour of Schitt’s Creek. Saw the sign when I came in—we might have to double back and get a photo. Unless the boss still needs you here?” he added, glancing at David again.

“Oh,” said David. “I’m not his— It’s fine, go, have fun.”

Patrick gave him a quick look that seemed to be trying to convey _sorry, thanks,_ and _let’s talk later_ all at once. “We’ll be back in a couple of hours. Dinner at the cafe all right?”

“Sure. Prepare to be underwhelmed,” David told Tim, but Tim was dragging Patrick out the door by his sleeve already. Patrick managed to look back and actually mouth the words _I’m sorry_ with a wide-eyed shrug, and then they were gone.

Well.

David tried to imagine what it would be like if it were one of his old friends dropping by to catch up: Siobhan, or Elle, or, oh god, Karl. They wouldn’t fare any better. They’d be worse beyond compare.

Not that any of his old friends would ever dream of coming to visit. And, if they did, they wouldn’t tackle him to the floor and practically lick his face like a possessive Weimaraner. 

Why did he have to be so hot, David wondered, as he straightened up the display of lotions that had gotten jostled during the hilarious reunion horseplay. It seemed unfair, almost dishonest, for Patrick not to have mentioned that his best friend was that attractive. Unless maybe Tim hadn’t been so good-looking in high school—David seriously doubted that, though. Which made him wonder...

His phone lit up just then with a text from Stevie. _u didn’t tell me P’s BFF was an entire 4-course meal! single???_

 **y, pretty sure P said he broke up w his latest gf recently, go get it** , David replied.

_do we like him tho?_

David didn’t reply right away. 

_ooh hesitation I see_

**I met him for 2min! what do u think??**

_have been temporarily blinded by the smile, have 2 let u know later. kind of hyper maybe?_

**yeah guess they’re excited to see each other again, it’s been a while. g2g P calling**

“TK’s getting settled in his room,” Patrick said, when David picked up. “Sorry about earlier. That didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. Will you still meet us for dinner?”

“Of course. It’s fine, it’s...I’m sure it’s kind of weird. For him. And for you, too. Um. Is he super grossed out by the motel?”

“He’s very _amused_ by the motel,” Patrick said carefully, and David winced. He forgot, sometimes, how the place where he lived must look to outsiders. He’d thought it was a joke, too, not so long ago. “I kind of didn’t think about TK’s sense of humour being, uh, a lot, if you’re not used to it.”

David knew all about being A Lot. And about turning it up to eleven or twelve sometimes as a defense mechanism. “It’s fine,” he said again. “Don’t stress, okay? We’ll get to know each other over dinner. He seems really...fun.”

“He is,” Patrick said. “Maybe not your kind of fun, though, I guess.” 

But he was Patrick’s kind of fun, apparently? What did _that_ mean, then? David’s skin prickled with a cold little thrill of panic.

“You’re really sure he’s okay with, you know. Us?” he couldn’t help asking.

“I think so,” Patrick said, sounding less sure about that than he had before TK’s arrival, David noticed. “He might just need to get used to it. He jokes around a lot, but he’s really not an asshole—Oh, hey, didn’t hear you come out,” he added in a different tone, followed by the sounds of a scuffle and the phone being dropped.

“Who’s not an asshole?” David heard Tim say in the background. “Is that David? David, don’t listen to him, I am _definitely_ an asshole, but PB here really likes those, it turns out, so it’s okay— _Ow!_ ”

More scuffling sounds and muffled shouts, and then Patrick was back, breathing hard into the phone. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m going to have words with this idiot now, but we’ll see you at the cafe at seven. Love you,” he added quickly, and hung up.

David stood in the middle of the store blinking at his phone, which lit up again after a few moments with another message from Stevie. 

_getting it all on video for posterity_  
_...wow_  
_if they took off their shirts and oiled up a little we could make some $$$ here!_

**NOT HELPFUL, STEVIE**

His phone rang again: Alexis this time.

“Um, David?” she said. “Were you aware that your boyfriend is totally wrestling with Godfrey Gao on the motel lawn right now?”

“Um, yeah, Alexis, I was.” David kept his voice down to a dangerous whisper. “Were you aware that you’re going to die in your sleep tonight under mysterious circumstances?”

“Ohhhh,” Alexis crooned. “You’re jealous? That is so unbelievably precious!”

“Maybe not _die_ in your sleep. Maybe something even more gross, like losing an ear. Or your nose.”

“Blood makes you pass out, David,” Alexis reminded him. “Mmm, they’re just going _at_ it, you should really see this. Plus I don’t think I’ve seen Patrick laugh so hard since, like, ever?”

“I’m holding a box cutter right now. Your Ulla Johnson collection doesn’t bleed,” David said, and hung up on her.

*

“So I’d like to formally apologize for my behaviour today,” Tim said, sitting in a booth across from David and Patrick at the cafe that evening. Patrick had grass stains on his shirt and looked a little tousled but otherwise normal, and he was holding David’s hand underneath the table, so David felt slightly mollified but still nervy. “I really can be a bit of an asshole at times, and being around this guy for the first time in so long made me sort of revert to the age of seventeen, I guess. I’m sorry if I said anything that made you uncomfortable.”

Being formally apologized to was actually the worst, David decided. “Oh my god, it’s fine,” he said, waving it away. “Let’s just start over, okay? Hi. I’m David Rose. Nice to meet you.” He smiled winningly and held out his right hand across the table while Patrick squeezed his left one gratefully.

“Tim Kwan,” said Tim, shaking his hand, still with that intimidating grip, just in case there were any doubts that he could eat David for breakfast if he wanted to. “I can’t get over how weird this is, actually. David _Rose_ , of Rose Video, in this shithole town, _dating my best bud_. I mean, do you ever just wake up in the morning and think ‘how is this my life?’” he asked, turning to Patrick. “It’s gotta be so surreal! It feels like five minutes ago that I was dropping Rachel off at the Rose Video at that crummy little strip mall where you used to work, so she could make out with you after you finished closing—”

“Can I tell you about our specials tonight?” Twyla chirped, having glided up unnoticed while Tim was talking, and David had never been so grateful for Twyla’s presence at any time in the entire past four years since he’d met her. “You must be Patrick’s friend from Toronto. Hello and welcome! Oh, wow,” she added, awed, when Tim took her offered hand and kissed it. “Okay! So, tonight we’ve got a mushroom risotto that I was really excited to find at the back of the freezer, it’s _much_ better than the newer kind they make now, and that meatloaf your dad goes crazy for, David—he was in earlier and didn’t leave a whole lot, actually, but there’s at least one serving of that if you want to...fight it out? Heard about your little rough and tumble at the motel. Stevie put it up on YouTube, in fact.”

“So wild,” Tim murmured. “Thanks, I’ll just have a burger, actually, medium rare, no cheese, and whatever IPA you’ve got on draft.”

“Same for me, but an amber, and you can put extra cheese on my burger,” Patrick said. “I’ll take his cheese, actually.”

“That’s what she said,” Tim added, and Patrick whapped him lightly over the head with his menu.

“I’ll have the garden salad and a grilled chicken breast, and a small glass of chablis,” David said, taking Patrick’s menu away from him and handing it to Twyla along with his own before _this_ turned into something else that was going to go up on YouTube. He was going to have to text Stevie the second he could get to his phone unobtrusively.

“Is that gonna be enough, though?” Patrick said, looking concerned. “I mean. That’s just not a lot of food, for you, is it?”

“I’m trying a new thing,” David said, resisting the urge to dig his fingernails into the back of Patrick’s hand. “Thanks, Twyla, we’ll let you know if there’s anything else we need.”

“Anyway,” said Tim, when she’d left. “Damn, this place, I just can’t believe it, PB. What was I saying before the interruption?”

“I think you were about to tell us about your fascinating life as a web developer in the big city,” Patrick said. He was still holding David’s hand beneath the table, and he lifted it up, now, and kissed his knuckles before letting it go. It was the sort of thing he did so often that David hardly noticed it anymore, but Tim noticed it, definitely. David glanced over at Patrick to see if he’d done it deliberately, and thought that he probably had, but Patrick was leaning his chin on his hand now and looking across the table at Tim, watching him with totally innocent, interested eyes.

“Well, I’m a web developer in the big city.” Tim laughed, shaking his head. “What do you want to know?”

“I want to hear more about what Patrick was like in high school, actually,” David said, partly because he really did, and partly because he figured that would be a better way to get Tim talking non-awkwardly. “Did you used to go to his open mic nights?”

“Ohhh, you told him about our open mic nights?” Tim cried. 

“Yeah, for sure, that ground’s been well-covered already,” Patrick said. “How about when we were both in that godawful production of _Carousel_? Remember that wig you had to wear, and the time I—”

“We used to co-host,” Tim told David. “I was the stand-up guy, and PB was the crooner. God, you should have heard him. He’d have girls lined up after every set hoping to drop their panties at his feet, they’d all have tears in their eyes by the end of the first verse—”

“So not true,” Patrick protested. “TK’s so full of it, David, he’s completely—”

“And then there was that time you serenaded _me_ ,” Tim went on, and David watched in a detached sort of way as all the colours seemed to drain out of the room. Everything felt very slow and unreal. “It was classic, a totally classic PB moment, everyone was on the floor. I’ve still got a recording of it on VHS somewhere, I’ll have to get it converted to an MP4 and send it to you—what was the song? Wait, wait, it’ll come to me…”

David held his breath, trying not to obviously die. That would be a good one for YouTube: him dying in the middle of the Cafe Tropical, right there in the booth where he’d sat with Patrick on their first date. 

“It was ‘Quit Playing Games With My Heart’ by the Backstreet Boys,” Patrick said quickly, grabbing David’s knee under the table now and giving it what was probably meant to be a reassuring squeeze. “It was comedic. It was highly comedic, in the manner of totally imbecilic high school boys who thought pretending to be gay for each other was the pinnacle of humour.”

“Uh, yeah,” Tim said slowly. “When you put it like that. Maybe it wasn’t so cool of us, especially considering...okay, wow. Buzzkill, huh?”

Twyla brought their drinks then, saving David’s life for the second time that night. He really owed her...something, whatever it was that Twyla liked; he had no idea, but maybe he’d try to find out from Alexis. They clinked their beer bottles and wine glass, downed half their beverages in a few quick gulps, and then David was able to excuse himself to go to the washroom without looking like he was too obviously fleeing.

He didn’t know why he’d never thought about it before, Patrick singing to other people at his high school open mic nights, and probably other times, too. He’d sung to Rachel at them, almost certainly; David didn’t want to know what he’d sung to her. He hoped he’d never find out, and he was going to start crying in another fifteen seconds and then he’d have to go back out there with his eyes all puffy, and he actually would rather die. He’d crawl out the window first. He got out his phone and called Stevie.

“Okay, in my defense, it’s only had about ten views so far,” Stevie said right away. “And also in my defense, it’s really fucking funny.”

“Stevie, tell me I’m an idiot,” David said. “I really need this, okay, I don’t care about the stupid video, you can leave it up forever, just tell me right now what a complete and total waste of a brain cell I am, I just need you to do that for me without asking any questions, please.”

“Oh, you’re _such_ an idiot,” Stevie said, as if he’d asked her for the time, or if the motel had any vacancies. “The worst. I talk about it with your parents all the time.”

“You do?” David said gratefully. 

“And with Alexis. With everyone, in fact. Ted, Bob, Ronnie. With Roland, even…”

“No, that’s, you can stop there, thanks, that’s good.”

“I mean, I really can’t emphasize it enough, though, how stupid you are, because it takes a seriously world- _class_ idiot to have any doubts about the fact that Patrick Brewer is so disgustingly in love that he completely obviously loses his mind whenever you’re around. Just in case that’s what this is about. Which I’m pretty confident it is.”

“Loses his mind?” David asked, feeling a little bit steadier.

“Completely.”

“Okay, what about when I’m not around, though?”

“David,” Stevie said. “You’re an idiot, _and_ you’re neurotic, and there’s probably something really wrong with Patrick’s brain that made him this way, but he fucking worships the ground you walk on, so please go back to him now and let me get back to my lonely evening of microwaved Indian food and internet porn.”

“Ew,” David said. “I mean, I love you, Stevie, thank you, I don’t deserve you.”

“That’s three hundred percent true,” Stevie said. “Bye. Don’t call back.”

David went back out to the booth and found that their food had arrived and that Patrick and Tim were deep in conversation, Patrick listening to Tim with little furrows around the edges of his mouth that meant he didn’t like something about what he was hearing. 

“...only seen her a couple of times since then, but she’s still pretty messed up over it,” was the bit David caught, and then Patrick looked up and smiled only a little unconvincingly at him and got up to let him into the booth. 

“We were just making a game plan for the rest of the weekend,” Patrick said. 

“Yeah, big plans,” Tim agreed. “Thanks for lending him to me for a couple days, David, I meant to say so before.”

“Oh,” said David. “Am I? I mean, not that he’s mine to lend, because I don’t, um. Own him. Obviously. Which isn’t what you meant, but...sorry, what is the game plan, can I ask?”

“Well, hiking tomorrow, since you’re not a big fan of that and it’s your Saturday to cover the store,” Patrick said. David nodded; they’d talked that over before, although he perversely wished Patrick hadn’t told Tim that David wasn’t a hiker. “And then I’ll cook something for dinner—you’re welcome to join us, obviously—followed by fine cocktails and sophisticated conversation at the elegant Wobbly Elm…”

“Booze and trash talk,” Tim translated. “Which I intend to sleep off for most of Sunday morning while Patrick slaves away in retail hell. Sunday afternoon there’s a Blue Jays game on TV, and then I’m taking PB out to dinner to thank him for his hospitality, if we can find an intimate bistro around here that’s suitable to the occasion. Maybe there’s a Red Lobster nearby? Someplace really elegant. Nothing but the best and the classiest for this guy, right, PB?”

David wasn’t sure how to take this. “Sounds like a plan,” he said, politely not mentioning the fact that he apparently wasn’t expected to be involved in almost any of it. Which was fine. He had the picture, pretty much; it just wasn’t what he’d thought. Not what Patrick had thought, either, from the way he’d talked before, and from the way he was giving David sideways little apologetic looks while he sipped at his beer. 

_Worships the ground you walk on,_ he reminded himself, mentally fondling the words as if they were a talisman Stevie had given him. It was just a weekend. It wasn’t Patrick’s fault his friend was kind of a dick; Patrick probably hadn’t realized it either. It wasn’t like they were best friends _now_.

Except. _I don’t think I’ve seen Patrick laugh so hard since, like, ever,_ Alexis had said. And who had they been talking about while David was in the washroom? Tim’s ex? Or Rachel?

He wished he’d ordered a decent meal for himself, at least. Plain grilled chicken made him gag. 

“So, since tomorrow’s going to be full on, I’m good for an early night tonight. Can I give you a ride back to the motel, David?” Tim asked, when they were finishing up and Patrick had won the skirmish over who was going to pay the bill. 

“Um,” David said, looking at Patrick. They hadn’t talked about this. He’d been assuming he was going to go home with Patrick, as he did every Friday night—the store opened an hour later on the weekends. “Sure, if...that’s okay with you?” he asked Patrick, feeling stupid. 

“Yeah, let’s make it an early night all around,” Patrick said, as they all got up from the table. “We’re going to have to get up at six if we want to make it up the mountain before it gets too hot tomorrow. I’ll give you a call before I turn in.” He kissed David, a regular goodbye-I-love-you kiss like they might give each other in front of his parents or anybody without thinking about it, but they were both thinking about it this time, David could tell, and he hoped Tim wasn’t going to, like, whistle or say something gross. 

Maybe he wasn’t a _complete_ dick, though, because all he said was “You guys are adorable, you know; I bet you hear that all the time. I’m really happy for you, PB.”

“Okay,” Patrick said warily. “What’s the punchline?”

“No punchline! Jesus! Trust issues, this one,” Tim told David, pointing at Patrick and shaking his head, then got Patrick in a headlock as they walked out of the cafe and noogied him all the way to the car.

*

“I’m sorry,” Patrick told David on the phone that night, for at least the fifth time. “I really don’t know what his deal is. I don’t remember him being like this before, but maybe he’s changed, maybe _I’ve_ changed, or maybe he actually does have a problem seeing me with a guy, I never would have believed it, but—”

“Shhhh, it’s okay,” David said, also for at least the fifth time. “I don’t really mind. I mean, that doesn’t help much, because obviously you do mind, but if you’re worried about me, don’t be. I’ve met _so_ much worse. No contest.”

“I wanted you guys to like each other,” Patrick said, sounding crestfallen, and David really, really wished he could wrap his arms around him and hold on tight. 

“We might just need a little more time to get used to each other,” David said, although he didn’t believe it. Tim had hardly spoken to him in the car on the way back to the motel, not even the shovel talk David had sort of been dreading. “Um, do you still like him?”

“I guess,” Patrick said. “He’s fun, you know, he’s a laugh, and he’s got such crazy energy, it kind of sweeps you up when he focuses it on you.”

David’s breathing was getting shallow again, and he forced himself to slow down and inhale. Patrick found Tim _fun_ ; that was a thing that Patrick had actually just said. “He’s also really fucking good-looking,” he heard himself say. “Patrick? When you were in high school. Did you ever...think about him? I know you didn’t do anything with him,” he added quickly. “But did you, um, want to?”

Patrick was quiet for what felt like a long time. “Maybe?” he said at last. “Not...I didn’t let myself call it that, I couldn’t think about it that way, but...looking back? Uh, yeah, I probably did want to.” 

“I’m sorry,” David said quickly. “I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to make you upset, I shouldn’t have said anything—”

“It’s all right,” Patrick said, but he still sounded like he would rather be at the dentist than having this conversation, and David wished he had kept his mouth shut for once. He really was impossibly stupid. “I don’t want to _now_!” Patrick added suddenly. “David. You know that, right? I don’t have _any_ thoughts like that about him now, oh my god. No.”

 _Protest much?_ a part of David thought cynically, but he was able to keep that remark to himself, for a mercy. “I know, I know,” he said aloud. “I didn’t think you did, I promise. I just sort of wanted to get it out there, I guess; the guy is _cut_.”

“Should _I_ be worried?” Patrick teased him. “No, but in high school we were just a couple of weedy drama nerds, really. I don’t know when he turned into a gym rat. We both got practically no play when we were kids. He’s totally full of it about the open mic nights and the crying girls or whatever.”

“Mmm hm,” David said; he doubted that, but he didn’t want to think about the open mic nights again. “So he was pretty good friends with Rachel, back then, I take it. He’s still in touch with her?”

“Yeah,” Patrick said, after another pause. “The three of us were tight. And I guess she’s living in Toronto now, too—he helped her find a place there. David, I want to talk about this with you, I really do, sometime very soon, but it’s…”

“Late,” David agreed. “And you’re tired. Sorry. You should go to sleep.”

“I wish you were here.”

“I wish I were, too. Good night, PB.”

“Shut up,” Patrick warned him. “I can’t wait till one of _your_ friends comes to visit.”

“I never had a friend like that,” David said. “Have fun tomorrow. Don’t fall off the mountain. Don’t get eaten by a bear, and don’t drink from a stream and get dysentery.”

“Dysentery, David, really? It’s not the Oregon Trail.”

“Well, I don’t know! I’ve never been up there.”

“I’ll take you sometime,” Patrick told him. “I promise.”


	2. Chapter 2

“That’s so nice that Patrick has someone to go hiking with him,” Jocelyn gushed, when she came by the store Saturday morning to buy foot cream for Roland and organic applesauce for Roland Junior and wine for herself. “I always used to worry about him when I saw him heading up toward the trail all by himself.”

“When was this?” David demanded, ringing her up. “Patrick almost never goes hiking. Maybe once or twice since we started dating.”

“Oh, when he first came to town, it seemed like I was always running into him on his way up to the mountain. But of course, he’s busy with the store so much now, and hiking’s, well, not exactly your type of thing, is it? So it makes sense that he hardly ever goes anymore. He’s got a great day for it today, though. And such a handsome hiking buddy, hmm? Saw you three in the cafe last night and, well! _Rrrrrrawr_ , am I right?” Jocelyn made her hands into tiger claws and laughed. “I told Roland, I sure hope that’s one’s straight!”

“Oh god,” David said faintly. “Ew, Jocelyn.”

“For your sake, I mean! Oh, not that...well, that joke didn’t go over well at all, now, did it?”

“Not particularly, no,” David agreed. “That’ll be sixty-eight fifty, please.”

“Oh. I thought the applesauce was buy three get one free, though?”

“That promotion’s not going on any longer, sorry,” David said, and reached past her to whisk the SALE sign away from the applesauce jars on the counter. 

This was only the beginning of a long, frustrating day in which it seemed that everyone in Schitt’s Creek had decided it was necessary to stop by Rose Apothecary and make some comment on the gorgeousness, affability, and all-around amazingness of Patrick’s friend from the city. Apparently Tim had really made the rounds during his tour of the town the day before. The only slight consolation was that everyone who stopped by had the decency to buy a few things, although David’s paranoia tried to tell him that it was probably mainly because they felt sorry for him, left behind on his own to ring up cleansers and carrots while his boyfriend climbed mountains with the Adonis of Ontario.

He really did feel very pitiful. By closing time, David had developed an eye twitch and a pounding headache, and Patrick was completely failing to answer any of his texts or phone calls. Obviously he had either run away to start a new life in the city with Tim and Rachel, or he was lying lifeless and broken at the foot of a ravine somewhere while his phone buzzed uselessly, its screen shattered, inches away from Patrick’s still-twitching hand.

David put his head down on the counter, the better to indulge in this maudlin vision, and couldn’t find the energy to pick it up again when the bell jangled to announce another entrance. “We’re closed,” he said, after a minute, when whoever it was hadn’t taken the hint and left again.

“Good,” Patrick said into his ear, and bit him lightly on the neck. “This would be really unprofessional behaviour, if we weren’t.”

David jerked his head up. “I thought you were dead! Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

“There’s no reception up there,” Patrick said reasonably. “And then my phone died. Did you leave a lot of messages?”

“No,” David said, hoping Patrick hadn’t changed his password recently so that he could discreetly erase them once his phone recharged. “Where’s TK?” _Eaten by a bear?_ he managed not to say hopefully. 

“Back at the motel, showering and having a nap before dinner. I thought I’d come by and see if you could use a hand closing up. Want to come back to my apartment and help me shower and...not have a nap before dinner?”

“Um, _yes_ ,” David said, getting his arms around Patrick, headache forgotten. “Yes, please.”

“I’m really sweaty right now,” Patrick warned him, holding his hands up.

“I know.” David licked the side of his neck: salt and earth and sunscreen and musk. It was gross, but it was _Patrick_ , alive and not halfway to Toronto. “I like it. I like you all sweaty and outdoorsy.”

“Okay,” Patrick said slowly. “Since when?”

“Since always,” David said, and bit down on the spot he’d just licked, wondering if he could get away with giving Patrick a hickey, or if it would be too obvious of an attempt to mark his territory. He pushed his hands up the back of Patrick’s shirt, feeling the muscles of his lower back flex as David ground up against his thigh.

“Let’s lock the door, okay?” Patrick suggested breathlessly.

David didn’t want to; he half hoped someone would walk in and find them like this, making out like...like teenagers in their own store. He wanted to do a lot more than just make out, though, so eventually he relented. 

*

Hiking was arousing, apparently. Or something was. They closed the store in record time and broke the speed limit driving back to Patrick’s place, groping each other on their way up the stairs, leaving an impatient trail of clothing from the front door to the bathroom. 

Showering together wasn’t something they often did. David took showers very seriously, in general, but today he couldn’t wait to get soap-slick hands all over Patrick’s tight, overworked muscles. “Mmm,” Patrick moaned into his neck, warm and wet. “I have a feeling I’m going to need another shower after this one.”

“Turn around,” David told him. He wasn’t usually this forceful, either, but Patrick didn’t resist; he tipped his chin up and gave David a look of equal parts lust and amusement, then slowly turned and let David press him belly-up against the tile wall. David ran his hands all the way down his back, stopping just before he got to his ass, then slid one hand around to feel how hard he was getting, and Patrick jerked against his fingers and moaned again. David couldn’t help it, he had to; he couldn’t resist the need to drop to his knees and spread him open and get his tongue inside Patrick’s ass, making him quake and cry out, little quavery desperate sounds he couldn’t seem to hold back. 

_Those are mine,_ David thought complacently, pushing his tongue in deeper to try to draw more noises out of Patrick. _My sounds; no one else can make him feel this. Mine._

“You like that, huh?” David withdrew to ask, bringing two fingers up to tease at him in place of his tongue, pushing them just inside his rim, and Patrick thrust back on them, clenching around them, tight and hot. 

“Uh huh,” he said, high-pitched. “David—God, David, I need you to fuck me, please—”

David wanted to, badly, but they hadn’t brought any lube into the shower with them, and this was going to hurt Patrick in another minute, so reluctantly he shut off the water and made them both dry off and get over to the bed. This slowed their frantic excited pace down, but maybe that was for the best. He could take his time a little, then, and savour the sight of Patrick spread out on the mattress waiting for him, eyes dark and no longer amused in the slightest, biting his lip and touching himself while he watched David get a condom on and slick himself up.

It wasn’t going to last long once they started, David thought. He glanced at the clock and wondered how long they had before Tim showed up at the door, and then he had a fleeting image of Tim walking in and catching them in the act, seeing David bury his cock in Patrick while he moaned and begged and fucked himself against the mattress. It was a terrible thing to think and he hated himself for it, but it made him shamefully harder, and he shut his eyes.

“What?” Patrick said, watching him. “David?”

“Nothing, just—turn over, let me—”

Patrick nodded and got over onto all fours, and David gripped him by the hipbones and sank into him slowly, all the way.

“God,” Patrick groaned, and got a hand around himself, fucking his fist with slight slick sounds that made David’s mouth water. David pulled out of him again, almost entirely, and pushed slowly back in. He thought about trying to take his time, dragging it out, making it last an hour so maybe they _would_ be caught, but the idea of it was just too exciting, and his pace grew quicker, his thrusts less gentle. 

“Yes,” Patrick gasped out. “Just—just like that, hard, fuck me hard, David, I want it, want you to come in me—” 

David could feel it when Patrick started to come, tightening in pulses around David’s cock, and it was too much; it was much too much; his eyes were rolling back in his head, and sweat broke out all down his chest, making him shiver. He couldn’t stop himself. He was coming, shouting out, thrusting deep, reaching down to feel Patrick finishing hot all over his hand, and then it was over.

They were still locked together, trembling and sweating and panting, when David had a thought that sent ice through his veins: _What if he was thinking the whole time about TK doing that to him, fucking him so hard and fast, what if that’s what made him come so quick?_

David really, truly, very seriously hated the inside of his own head sometimes. He pulled out carefully, kissed Patrick on the back of the neck, and got up to deal with the condom and bring back a washcloth to help Patrick clean up. 

“God, I needed that,” Patrick said, flipping over onto his back and grinning exhaustedly up at David when he returned. “Come here.” He pulled David down for a kiss, and then another, and another. “You’re so good to me. Thank you.”

 _I’m a monster, actually,_ David thought helplessly, but he really didn’t want Patrick to ever find that out, so he just made a face and shook his head and then went in for another kiss.

“What?” said Patrick, laughing at him. “You’re not good to me? You are. You’re the best.”

“I mean, I am the best,” David acknowledged. “But fucking you isn’t something I need to be thanked for. It wasn’t like it was a sacrifice.”

“All right, thank you for being a good sport about this weekend, then,” Patrick said. “Thank you for trying to be nice to my annoying friend. And for working all day while I went off to climb a mountain. And for having...such an amazing cock; I know it’s not something you had any say in, but thank you, anyway, it’s something I deeply appreciate about you.”

“Mmm, well, I aim to please,” David said, feeling warm all over now. “I’m glad you got to climb your mountain,” he added after a bit. “And your friend’s not _that_ annoying. You had a good day?”

“As good as this? No. But it was fun. TK’s a lunatic. We didn’t go on my favourite trail, the scenic one—we took the rough hike straight up to the top. He’s been acting so wild this visit, I kind of wanted to wear him out a little, you know?”

“Hmm,” David said. “So he’s not usually this…” He tried to think of a word that wasn’t completely offensive.

“Not usually quite this,” Patrick agreed. “I feel like he’s got something on his mind that’s making him extra off the wall. He keeps sort of hinting at it. I think...I think he might be dating Rachel.”

“Oh.” David lay down next to him and touched his hair. “God. Patrick, that’s...are you okay?”

“Sure,” Patrick said, taking his hand and kissing it. “It’s fine. Kind of weird maybe. But I’ll be happy for them, I guess, once I get used to the idea. If it’s true. I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I kind of figure that has to be it.”

“Wow. I don’t know what to say.” He really didn’t. He didn’t know if this was good news or not. Good, if it meant Tim wasn’t scheming to steal Patrick away to get back together with Rachel again. Bad, if Patrick was hurt by it; no one should ever be allowed to do that.

“You don’t have to say anything.” Patrick kissed him again, softly, and then less softly, opening his mouth, letting his tongue just lick lightly against David’s, and that was when the door buzzed.

*

“Heyyy,” Tim said, coming in with a bottle of very expensive Scotch and a bouquet of mixed anemones, and David went to fetch a vase and some glasses. “Took you long enough—was I interrupting something?”

David smiled, hoping he didn’t look too smug, and Patrick cough-laughed. 

“Oh, whoa, I was? I was! Damn! Do you guys want me to leave and come back in half an hour, or—”

“No!” Patrick said, actually laughing now. “You weren’t _actively_ interrupting anything. It’s fine.”

“Far be it from me to stand in the way of love,” Tim said dramatically, and Patrick threw a balled-up pair of socks at his head. 

“Just don’t stand between me and that Scotch and we’re good,” Patrick told him, deflecting the socks that TK pegged back at him.

“I would never try to get between PB and a glass of single malt,” Tim said. “Been there, done that, still have the scars.”

David watched them in amazement, most of the warmth draining away from him again. It was like watching Patrick suddenly start conversing fluently in a language he’d never heard him speak before. “I didn’t even know you drank Scotch,” he told Patrick. 

“I don’t, much,” Patrick admitted. “This is a real throwback. We had some high times sneaking bottles out of TK’s grandfather’s cellar, until we got caught...”

“Passed out in our underwear on the ninth green on a Sunday morning,” TK supplied. “Strip golf! I’d almost forgotten.”

“Strip _golf?_ ” David glanced quickly over at Patrick, whose ears were very pink. “Sexy!”

“It wasn’t my idea!”

“Not how I recall it, but okay.” Tim shrugged. “Anyway, let’s crack it open. What are you cooking? I’m starved, and you just had a double workout, looks like, so you must be totally famished...”

“Shut up, TK,” Patrick warned him, walking past and flicking him on the ear. “Broiled salmon and lemon fettuccine, but only if I don’t decide to kick you out before I serve it.”

David had been strongly considering making an excuse to leave them to it, but he could put up with a little more for Patrick’s lemon fettuccine, he decided. Besides, it was kind of fascinating, like watching Patrick perform in a play. A weird, bad...kind of homoerotic play. 

*

Three hours later, though, with dinner consumed and the cleanup complete, the conversation had all turned to Tales of People David Didn’t Know, and really, he’d been valiant enough for one day, he decided. 

“Well. I’m going to let you two finish up this night on your own,” he announced, getting up to go and ignoring their token protests. “Honestly, it’s fine—you’ve only got tonight and tomorrow to, uh, reminisce, and I don’t feel like going out, anyway. You were still thinking you’d head out for the Wobbly Elm tonight, right?”

“That’s the plan,” Patrick said. “I only had the one drink of Scotch, before dinner; I can drive. Sure you don’t want to come along?” 

“Nnnno. Thanks, but...I’m out. You won’t be able to drink if you drive, though. How about if I take the car and drop you off, and you can call me when you’re ready to be picked up?” David suggested. “There’s not exactly much of a taxi service around here,” he explained to Tim.

“You’re my hero, David Rose,” Tim said, shaking him by the shoulder and looking slightly drunkenly into his eyes. “The man, the myth, the legend, the force of nature who turned PB to the other side...”

“Okay, you have got a _lot_ of Scotch to put away if you want to keep up,” David told Patrick. 

Patrick spread his hands and shrugged. “I can’t keep up with TK. No one can. You just sort of grab onto something and pray until the ride’s over.”

“No, I’ll be good if you take me out,” Tim promised, hanging an arm around Patrick’s neck. “I’ll take very good care of PB, just like always, and keep him out of trouble.”

“ _Is_ that what you used to do, though?” Patrick asked him, ducking out from under his arm and giving him a shove toward the kitchen. “Go drink some water before I agree to this plan.” He walked with David toward the door, lowering his voice. “Thanks, David. We won’t stay out long. I think he’ll tell me about...what he wanted to tell me, if we’re on our own.”

“Yeah,” David agreed. “I figured. Um, I hope it goes well. You want to do this, right?”

“Might as well get it over with,” Patrick said. “Maybe he’ll chill out a little once he’s got it off his chest.”

They got into Patrick’s car, TK in the back seat leaning forward to sing “Quit Playing Games With My Heart” softly in Patrick’s ear, and David couldn’t drop them off fast enough. One more day, he told himself, on his way back to the motel. What was one more day?

*

When he let himself into his room, it was still only ten-thirty. Alexis was at Ted’s again, apparently, and David was slightly annoyed by this. Why wasn’t she demanding the entire Tim lowdown? What were sisters even good for? He couldn’t go to bed, and he definitely wasn’t about to have a heartwarming chat with his parents, and Stevie was out on a Tinder date and wouldn’t answer his texts except with the middle finger emoji. So he picked up a book, and almost immediately fell asleep.

He woke to the sound of his phone, vibrating on the bedside table, and picked it up and looked confusedly at it, so asleep he didn’t know how to make it stop. “Stop,” he told it. “It’s,” he squinted at the screen, “...two in the morning, just shut up, I don’t want any.” The phone stopped buzzing, only to start up again a minute later. 

“Oh my _god_ ,” David moaned, but he was more awake now, and then he was fully awake. Two in the morning? It wasn’t supposed to be two in the morning. He grabbed his phone. Nine missed calls, all from Patrick. “Fuck!” he cried, and hit _return call_.

“I fell asleep, I’m so sorry, can I come get you now?” David said in a rush as soon as the call went through. 

“That would be really good,” said Tim’s voice at the other end, slurry and indistinct. “We’re kind of in a small situation here. There’s a, um, a hospital nearby, right?”

David felt his heart actually stop and then start to race. He couldn’t speak, and then he heard Patrick in the background and went shaky with relief. “I don’t need a hospital, TK! Did you get through to David? Tell him I’m fine!” 

“What the fuck,” David spat into the phone. “Where are you! What happened to Patrick?”

“A slight disagreement,” Tim said, apparently trying very hard to enunciate. “In the parking lot of the place. Bar where you left us at. Slightly in need of first aid.”

“Oh my god,” David said, grabbing the car keys. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Ten minutes. Just...stay there!”

*

He had to pull around to the back of the bar before he found them, but finally his headlights illuminated two squinting figures back against the trash bins: Patrick sitting on the ground, holding a balled-up cloth to his mouth that was soaked half through with red, and Tim pacing, shirtless beneath his jacket, both of them clearly very drunk. 

David was out of the car and kneeling next to Patrick in an instant. “Let me see,” he said, trying to pull away the wad of fabric. 

“Don’t,” Patrick said, muffled through the cloth. “You’ll pass out, I’m all...it’s just my lip, it’s fine, I’m fine.”

“You’re _bleeding all over a bar parking lot_ at two in the morning,” David told him furiously. “You’re lucky the police didn’t pick you up. What _happened,_ were you arguing, did he—”

A lot of garbled drunken explanations ensued, but David had seen enough to decide that what he most needed to do was get them both away from there and into their beds. “Okay, enough, I have no idea what you’re trying to tell me, but let’s do it at home. Tim, front seat. Patrick, lie down in the back and keep putting pressure on it. I feel like I’m babysitting, for fuck’s sake—how did the two of you survive high school? Don’t answer that!” he added, because he was beginning to suspect that the answer was probably _Rachel_ , and he didn’t want to know.

*

He dropped Tim off at the Rosebud, talking over his protests with promises that he’d look after Patrick and they’d talk to him in the morning. “Sure you don’t want me to stay with you, PB?” Tim kept repeating drunkenly. “I can stay. I’ll stay with you. It’s no problem.”

“No,” said Patrick, who seemed somewhat less drunk; he’d had a lot less to drink at home. “Go. Go to bed, TK, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” Finally Tim got out of the car, muttering and shaking his head, and stumbled toward the motel. David waited to make sure he was sober enough to let himself into the right room, and then drove Patrick home.

It was a long shaky walk up the stairs. David was half carrying him by the end of it, supporting Patrick inside and depositing him on the bed. 

“I’m okay,” Patrick kept saying. “David. Don’t be scared, I’m okay.”

“I’m not scared,” David lied. “I’m fucking livid. Let me see your face; how bad is it?” He succeeded in pulling Tim’s wadded-up shirt away from Patrick and nearly did pass out; he hated blood, he really hated facial injuries, and he really, _really_ hated the thought of how much pain Patrick was going to be in once he sobered up. 

“Did TK do this to you?” he asked, high-pitched and breathless with the effort of trying not to keel over.

“No, no,” Patrick assured him. “This guy. Playing pool. Big. Bashed the cue into my face. Um. Are my teeth okay?”

David hadn’t even thought about that, and now he really was feeling faint; he had to look away and take deep breaths for a minute. He probably should have taken Patrick to the hospital. Who had put him in charge? “I hope so,” he said. “Let’s...let’s get you cleaned up, okay, and then we’ll see.”

“I’m sorry,” Patrick said. “It was really stupid.”

“Uh, _yeah,_ ” David told him. “No argument here.”

It wasn’t nearly as bad as David feared, actually. Patrick hissed and flinched while he cleaned the blood off his face, but it was mostly dried, not fresh. David still felt woozy, but it was Patrick; Patrick needed him, so he could do this. He even found a butterfly bandage in the medicine cabinet, consulted Google, and somehow succeeded in applying it to Patrick’s mouth. The bleeding had stopped, so he didn’t need stitches, and his teeth were okay: just a split lip and a lot of bruising. 

“You’re going to look like you’ve been in a bar brawl,” he said at last, bringing Patrick a couple of top-quality painkillers from his own carefully hoarded stash and a glass of water with a straw. “ _Were_ you in a bar brawl?”

“Not exactly,” Patrick said. “Tell you in the morning, okay?” He drank down the water along with the pills David had brought him, not even asking what they were, and shut his eyes. His phone vibrated, next to the bed. “Turn it off?” he asked, and David reached over him to pick it up. There were a whole row of texts from Tim visible on the lock screen.

_PB man you ok???_  
_I am so so so so sorry_  
_we need to talk_  
_I love you PB please don’t be mad_

“Did he tell you?” David couldn’t help asking. “About Rachel?”

“No,” said Patrick. “Tell you in the morning.”

*

Patrick was still asleep when David woke up. His mouth was a swollen mess, bruised halfway up the side of his face; it hurt to look at him. David got up as quietly as he could. He showered and dressed and made tea and toast, and Patrick still slept on. He didn’t have the heart to try and wake him. 

Finally David left another couple of painkillers on the bedside table along with a note: _I’ve got the store this morning. Take these and go back to sleep. xxxD_

*

It was after eleven before Patrick called. “I’m sorry,” he told David, sounding like he was speaking through a mouthful of wet paper.

“I know,” David said. “How’s your mouth? Should I send Ted over to look at it?”

“No,” said Patrick. “Don’t. I already feel like such an idiot.”

“So what happened?”

Patrick hesitated. “It kind of hurts to talk,” he said. 

“The short version, then,” David said impatiently. “Someone bashed you with a pool cue, you said; how did that come about?”

“It was mostly an accident,” Patrick mumbled. “We were talking and TK was being...loud; this guy got up in his face, and I got between them. We were pretty drunk.”

David waited. “That’s it?”

“Basically.”

“Patrick.”

“Can you come home?” Patrick asked. 

“What, _now?_ ” David’s heart began to hammer. 

“Yeah. No. I don’t know. I just want to see you, that’s all.”

“Patrick, what _happened?_ ”

“TK came out to me last night,” Patrick said in a rush. “I confronted him about how he’d been acting around us, I asked him right out if he had problems seeing me involved with a guy, and he said...he said his only problem was seeing me with a guy that wasn’t him. That if he’d known...” He trailed off, and then, a few moments later, “David? Did you hear me? Are you still there?”

“Um, yeah,” David said. “Um. You know, there’s customers here; I should really...”

“I’m sorry,” Patrick said. “It was kind of a shock,” he added shakily. “That’s all.”

“Yeah, I guess it would be.” David cleared his throat. “So. I’ve got...I’ve really got to go deal with this, here, but I’ll call you back, okay?”

“David,” Patrick pleaded, but David ended the call and turned off his phone. There actually were customers coming in the door just then, which was good, because it kept him busy for the next half hour, talking about the differences between hair cream and pomade, making small talk, making change, restocking the lip balms, and refusing to let himself think.

*

After the lunch rush there was a lull, and he flipped the sign on the door to CLOSED and left the store and walked back to Patrick’s building, feeling unreal and half-asleep. It wasn’t a big deal, he tried to tell himself. Maybe he’d misunderstood. Maybe Patrick had misunderstood. Maybe Tim had a d-bag boyfriend in Toronto, or a whole string of them; he seemed the type.

Tim's obnoxious red Mini was parked conspicuously in front of Patrick's apartment building, taking up two spots. David wanted to key it. Instead, he let himself in and climbed the stairs to Patrick’s apartment, as quietly as he could, skipping the squeaky step.

The apartment door was slightly ajar, and there were voices coming from inside, low and clear. He knew he shouldn’t, but he did it: waited outside in the hall, holding his breath, and listened.

“Yeah, ten years ago I might have had a slightly different reaction, that’s a fact,” Patrick was saying. “Five years ago, even, maybe. But it’s totally different now. I’m in a relationship. I’m in love.”

“Only for lack of any other options in this shithole,” Tim said, and David shut his eyes and blew out a silent breath; it was something he’d thought himself, at dark moments.

“Well, that’s just not true,” Patrick said calmly. “You don’t know him. You don’t even really know _me_ anymore, TK, it’s been—”

“I know you better than anyone,” Tim insisted. “He doesn’t get you the way I do, it’s obvious. We have _fun_ together, you and me, we always have, and I think I always sort of wanted you—”

“That’s bullshit.” Patrick’s voice was angry now. He was moving around the room, it sounded like, and the next thing he said was an inaudible mutter.

“I thought you were with Rachel! I swear, PB, the minute she told me, I knew it was meant to be. I always sort of knew—we both did, back then, don’t you think? If we hadn’t been too scared...Remember that night when I kissed you? It was burned into my brain forever, I swear to god—”

David must have made a sound, then, some sort of small wounded animal sound, because their voices went suddenly quiet, and there were swift footsteps toward the door. He couldn’t move, and then the door opened and Patrick was standing there, pale and bruised and shocked.

“I’m sorry,” David whispered, and Patrick looked back over his shoulder and then came out into the hall, shutting the door behind him. “I shouldn’t be here, I shouldn’t have eavesdropped, I shouldn’t _exist_ , and I’m leaving now, I’m sorry.”

“Hey.” Patrick took him by the shoulders and gave him a little shake, trying to make eye contact with him, but David couldn’t. “I’m not—This isn’t anything you need to worry about, okay? I’m with you. I don’t want to be with _anyone_ else. You know that.”

“You didn’t know you could have him, though,” David said, keeping his eyes focused on the peeling paint in the apartment building’s hallway. “So I think maybe you might need to think about it.”

“No,” Patrick started to say. “It’s not like that, it’s—”

“You kissed him?” David said, because for some reason that felt like the worst, most hurtful thing; he wasn’t sure why it mattered in the vast awfulness of losing Patrick entirely, but it did. It really did. 

“What?” Patrick dropped his hands and took a step back, sounding totally confused. “No!”

“Not now. Before. He said, _that time I kissed you._ I just thought...you said, that first time...Never mind, it doesn’t matter,” he said, and brushed past Patrick and went down the stairs quickly, because he was starting to cry, and it was too horrifying.

Patrick caught up to him just as he reached the bottom of the stairs and got between him and the door, blocking his way, hands up in placation. “David,” he said, his voice quavering. “There is an explanation, which I don’t think I can even get you to listen to right now, but I wish you’d trust me. I know I haven’t given you every reason to trust me in the past, but—”

“Please move,” David whispered, closing his eyes. “Don’t look at me. I can’t.”

“David,” Patrick said again, sounding broken, but he moved aside. “Okay, just...go, if you need space right now, I get it, but please—I do need time to talk to TK, but I don’t need time to think about it. I know what I want, David.”

“Yep,” David said. “Okay, I’ll talk to you later, then,” and got past him and out the door, thinking _he could stop me, he would stop me if he wanted to,_ but Patrick didn’t stop him, and he couldn’t crumple up in the parking lot of Patrick’s apartment building and die, so there was nothing to do but walk back to the motel.

Alexis was there when he got in. “David, what the fuck! Did you get hit by a bus? Mom says the store is closed, Ted heard that Patrick and his friend went all Fight Club on each other in a bar last night, Twyla tried to tell me this TK character is actually an escaped convict with a record for murder, and now you walk in here looking like—Have you been _crying?_ David, what is going _on?_ ”

“I need a hug,” he told her, and went over to bury his face in her shoulder.


	3. Chapter 3

“So let me get this straight,” said Stevie, who’d been summoned to Room 7 by Alexis for an emergency conference-slash-intervention. “Your plan is to just sit back and let Patrick be snatched away from you by some asshole dudebro who leaves damp towels on the bed, doesn’t know how to flush, and who lets him get bashed up in bar fights? What makes you think Patrick would even have any interest in being with someone like that?”

“He is _really_ good-looking, though, to be fair,” Alexis cut in. “And funny. Or at least, Patrick finds him funny. What?” she asked defensively, when Stevie raised her eyebrows at her and David dropped his head down on the table and wrapped his arms around the back of his neck. “I’m just saying! Obviously Patrick shouldn’t run away with this jerkwad, especially if he doesn’t flush, ew, but it’s not a no-brainer that he wouldn’t.”

“My point,” said Stevie, slowly, “is that even if Patrick _would_ —which I don’t personally believe—would someone who actually claims to care about him allow him to do such a disastrously stupid thing?”

“You don’t understand,” David wailed, still with his head down. 

“I really don’t,” Stevie agreed.

“Oh, I do,” Alexis said, raising her hand confidently. “It’s self-sabotage. Just like the thing with Ken.”

David whipped his head up. “It is _so_ different than the thing with Ken!”

“Who the fuck is Ken!” Stevie cried.

“What, he didn’t tell you?” Alexis asked. 

David covered his face with his hands and shook his head slowly. Of course he hadn’t told Stevie. She already knew he was an idiot, but she didn’t have to know he was a _complete_ idiot. 

“David tried to get Patrick to go on a date with some little hottie who came into the store one day and gave Patrick his number,” Alexis explained. “Then he freaked out and went into a panic spiral over it, but Patrick couldn’t actually bring himself to go through with it, so it was fine.”

Stevie was silent, sitting in the chair across from him, and David finally peeked through his fingers to find her with her head in her hands.

“Okay, I’ve changed my mind,” she said. “Maybe the damp towel dudebro actually is the better option for Patrick. At least he seems to know a good thing when he sees it.”

David slammed his hands down on the table. “Patrick isn’t a good thing. He’s the _best_ thing. He deserves more than—” He stopped. 

“More than what?” Stevie challenged. “More than what he wants? Because he wants _you_. What part of that don’t you understand? I don’t know how else to say it, David, and I’m sure he doesn’t, either. Jesus, the poor guy; what is it you need? You need him to come back and, what, beg for you, make some grand gesture to prove that he actually does—”

“I know he does!” David shouted. God, he hated Stevie sometimes. “I know he wants me! I’m saying that he _shouldn’t!_ He should be with someone who doesn’t freak out like this and make him work so hard! What part of that don’t _you_ understand?”

“Oh, I don’t know: all of it?” Stevie snapped. “You’re being so obtuse, and you’re so fucking lucky; somehow you’re going to have to come to terms with this and quit torturing Patrick, and everyone else who has to deal with you—”

“I don’t want you to deal with me! I don’t want anyone to have to deal with me! That’s, like, my entire _point_ , so just fucking...fuck _off_ , Stevie!” 

“Fine,” Stevie said, shoving back her chair. “Have it your way, enjoy being friendless and alone. It’s so much fun, trust me. Bye!” She stormed out, slamming the door.

“Wow,” said Alexis, after a moment. “Well. _That_ escalated quickly.”

David felt a shaky laugh escape him, mainly just an automatic tension release. It wasn’t actually funny. It didn’t feel like anything was ever going to be funny again. 

“She’s actually not wrong, completely,” Alexis said. “She just doesn’t understand.”

He glanced quickly over at her, and had to look away again. Alexis’s eyes were very large and bright, full of pity; Alexis understood, probably more than anyone else ever could. 

David got up and went over and faceplanted into his bed. It felt good: dark and soft and undemanding. He wanted to live there. He wanted to go into shutdown mode until the next thing happened, whatever it was; maybe nothing. Maybe he’d just actually be allowed to stay there forever this time.

There was a tap at the adjoining door to his parents’ room, and Moira peeked in. “These walls really are lamentably insubstantial,” she observed. “May I come in?”

“No!” David said.

Moira came over and sat next to him on the bed. “I won’t stay long. Just a word of motherly advice, a breath of wisdom from the voice of experience. When you find someone who’s willing to put up with your dramatics, dear, it’s best to hold on to them. Patrick is very much like your father; I’ve always thought so.”

“Oh my god, Mom. That’s not an enticement!”

“Steady as a rock,” Moira went on implacably. “You deserve that, David. You truly do.” She patted him briskly on the shoulder as she got up from the bed, and he heard the door between the rooms close again a moment later.

“Also not wrong,” Alexis said. “Way to go, Mom, only, like, twenty or thirty years too late. I’m impressed. Except for comparing Patrick to Dad, because ew ew ew _ew_.” 

“I know, right?” David shuddered.

“Your phone just buzzed, by the way,” Alexis added. “Ooh. Text from Patrick.”

David vaulted off the bed and across the room to snatch the phone away from her.

 _I need you,_ the text read. 

His mouth was dry and he didn’t know how he was going to respond, but there were three dots on the screen now; Patrick was still typing.

_I mean I actually need you, that cut on my lip opened up again and I think it’s going to need a couple of stitches_  
_Can you drive me to the hospital_

**Be there in 5,** David texted, already on his way through the door into his parents’ room to commandeer the car keys.

“Off to reclaim your beau already? I knew I’d get through to you,” Moira exulted. “Mother really does know best.”

David didn’t even stop to tell her how wrong she was on how many different counts, just flapped an impatient hand at her on his way out the door.

*

The red Mini was gone from the front of Patrick’s apartment building. Patrick came out almost as soon as David pulled up and got into the passenger seat, holding a towel to his face—a dark brown one, so David couldn’t see how bloody it was, thankfully. He looked pale and hung over, raggedly exhausted.

“I’m having a really bad day,” he said.

It was painful, physically painful to feel this much, so many things at once; it was hard to breathe through it. David wasn’t sure he was going to be able to drive, for a moment, but he had to, so he put the car into reverse and pulled out anyway, and his vision cleared once he had the road in front of him.

“I know,” he told Patrick. “I know you are. You can tell me later.”

Patrick nodded and closed his eyes, and they didn’t talk all the way to Elmdale.

*

They didn’t talk much in the hospital waiting room, either, even though it was a long wait; the triage nurse took Patrick’s vitals and looked at his face for three seconds before taping a thick wad of gauze over the side of his mouth and assigning them to the Less Urgent queue. David was ready to tell him how clearly, dangerously, _litiginously_ wrong he was, but Patrick nudged him hard in the ribs with his elbow and shook his head, so David followed him back out to the waiting area with a sigh and a parting glare for the impervious nurse, who was already calling in the next patient.

Patrick put his head down on David’s shoulder while they waited, and the surge of feelings welled back up in his chest, swelling over and through him like a terrible, beautiful storm that he wasn’t sure he’d survive. He breathed carefully, trying to will his heartbeat to slow down in case Patrick was trying to doze off; it must have sounded like a Taiko drum performance in there. He was almost sure that Patrick had fallen asleep anyway, after ten minutes, but then Patrick was shifting, pulling his phone out of his pocket, typing a text message with his head still down on David’s shoulder. 

David averted his eyes. He didn’t want to know what Patrick was telling TK, he told himself, he really didn’t, but then his own phone buzzed in his pocket, and he took it out; the message was from Patrick.

_I’m really sorry about all this_

**You didn’t do anything to be sorry for,** David texted back, hoping it was true.

_I know but it still sucks_  
_Definitely not what I was planning for this weekend_

**I hope not**  
**Your planning skills have seriously gone downhill if so**

Patrick snorted slightly, only a breath of a laugh, but David could feel the vibration of it; he smiled a little. There was a pause, then, and then Patrick was typing again, slowly.

_He tried to kiss me_  
_Today I mean_

David tensed without meaning to, but Patrick put his phone down for a minute and placed a hand on his thigh, warm, giving him a squeeze of reassurance before beginning to text again.

 _I kicked him out. I decked him, actually,_ Patrick typed, and David looked down at the hand that had just sent the message and saw that Patrick’s knuckles were red and swollen. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed it before, but there had sort of been a lot going on.

David took the phone away from Patrick, gently, and picked up his hand, kissing the bruises, then put it back down and returned his phone to him.

 **Good,** he typed back.  
**I mean I can’t fault the guy for being in love with you but that was not okay**

_He likes to push boundaries. It’s gotten him in trouble before._

How could you have been good friends with this guy, David wanted to shout, but he restrained himself. Patrick seemed to know what he was thinking, though.

_He’s not a bad guy. He just really doesn’t know when to stop sometimes. That time he kissed me in high school, that you overheard him talking about?_

David put his hand over Patrick’s on the phone, stopping him. “You don’t have to tell me,” he said out loud. “Not now. Not ever, if you don’t want to. I trust you. It doesn’t matter.”

Patrick shook his head against David’s shoulder and kept typing. 

_It was when we were in Carousel in Grade 12_  
  
_I was Billy Bigelow and this girl from the Catholic sister school was playing Julie, but she was absent from the dress rehearsal and TK stood in and read her part, being a total ham about it of course_  
  
_There was a scene where we were supposed to stage kiss and he full on went for it, tongue and all, everyone was laughing and screaming when he did it and I made some stupid joke I don’t remember_

Patrick paused. David was holding his breath, not wanting to react in any way.

_I thought he was just being over the top like he does, we used to mess around a lot pretending we were gay for each other like the open mic night he told you about. It was so stupid and juvenile but_

Patrick stopped typing again. It was a while before he started again this time.

_I mean I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel anything when he did it. It was_  
  
_kind of intense_  
  
_I just didn’t think it meant anything, I told myself it was just a physical sensation, I didn’t let myself think about it just tried to forget_  
  
_and I didn’t think that counted as kissing a guy_  
  
_I didn’t mean to lie to you I just didn’t think of it as a real kiss_

Patrick lifted his head to look at David, heartbreakingly uncertain. 

“It doesn’t count,” David said quickly. “Especially if you didn’t think of it that way. It doesn’t count, it doesn’t mean anything, I’m sorry I got all upset about it.”

Patrick nodded. _Thank you,_ he typed, and put his head back down on David’s shoulder. He started to put his phone away in his pocket again, then stopped and sent one more text message.

_You’re not the only one who’s changed a lot, David Rose._

David didn’t respond to that, but he did think about it. He thought about it for the next half hour while they continued to wait, and while he held Patrick’s hand as they put the stitches in and gave him an antibiotic shot, and for most of the drive home in the darkening evening. 

*

“So that was a really gorgeous black eye Tim was sporting when he came by the motel to check out this afternoon,” Stevie called to say, late that night when David finally returned one of her texts. “And when I say check out, I mean he actually just threw his room key down in front of the office door and sped away in his little douchemobile. Your work or Patrick’s?” 

“Patrick’s,” David told her, glancing over at the bed. Patrick was down for the count, it looked like, but he kept his voice low, just in case. “He didn’t stiff you for the room, did he?”

“Oh no, I have his credit card on file,” Stevie assured him. “What extra charges can I slap on his account and legally get away with it, do you think? Cleaning fee, definitely. Parking surcharge. Asshole tax? I’ve gotten away with that one before; I just put in a line that says ‘ass. tax’ and say it’s short for Assorted if anyone asks.”

“Don’t,” David begged her. “He’d be the kind to notice and be a dick about it. I really just hope we never hear from him again.” 

“Things are...okay, then?” Stevie asked, fake-nonchalantly. 

“They’re not _not_ okay,” David said. He didn’t want to get into it. He still felt pretty much the way Patrick’s mouth looked: badly bruised and held together with ugly black thread. Basically fine underneath it all and likely to heal without a scar, but still unbearably tender and sore for the moment.

“I was pretty harsh today,” Stevie said finally, when he didn’t go on. “Sorry if I overstepped.”

“I mean, you weren’t wrong,” David allowed, echoing Alexis. “I’m just, you know.” He closed his eyes and fanned at them with his free hand; he wasn’t going to cry at Stevie, even over the phone.

“I know,” Stevie said. “World-class idiot. Let me know the next time you need me to remind you of that.”

“Uh huh,” David said. “You’re so good to me that way.”

“Seriously, David, just...be happy you’ve got this, okay? It’s allowed.”

“I’m trying,” he said. “Believe it or not, this is what it looks like when I actually am trying.”

“God, you’re so fucked up.”

“Yeah. And you’re such a B.”

“Love you too,” Stevie said. “Go take care of your boyfriend. By the way, Alexis and I are going to open the store for you tomorrow. You can find a way to express your undying gratitude to us later. Sleep tight.”

*

“There’s really just one thing I need to know,” David told Patrick the next morning, bringing him lukewarm tea, which he sipped carefully, wincing.

Patrick looked wary over the rim of the mug. “Um. Okay, yeah, shoot.”

“How many more of your exes are going to be arriving in town to claim you? I mean, is this going to be some kind of Scott Pilgrim-type situation, or…?”

Patrick put down his tea and threw a pillow at him. “None. No more exes. And TK wasn’t a ex!”

“I know. I’m sorry. I just thought it was funny.”

“Hilarious,” Patrick said. He still looked very pale. “Do we get to talk about your high school romances now?”

“There weren’t any,” David said. “I had crushes. One million unrequited crushes. And I had sex, sometimes. Nothing even remotely approaching romance. I didn’t actually...connect with anyone, not for more than a one-night stand, until I was in my mid-twenties, and not even very much then.”

“Oh,” said Patrick. “Right.”

“So, um. I guess that’s why I felt so. You know. Threatened. When someone came along who did have that kind of...actual involvement with you. Even if it wasn’t sexual.”

“Come here,” Patrick said softly, and David went to him and curled into him, the undamaged side, away from his hurt mouth. Patrick kissed his hair. “I’m so glad everything happened exactly the way it did,” he said. “For both of us. Even if it kind of sucked...or even seriously sucked, at the time.”

“I know,” said David. “We were really lucky.” He meant it, he realized with some surprise, hearing the words come out of his mouth. It actually was true. It was _very_ lucky that Patrick and TK hadn’t figured out what all their homoerotic joking around had meant at the time; if they had, Patrick might not be Patrick now, so it was lucky for David, but it was lucky for Patrick, too. It was the same as the good fortune he’d had when his family lost all their money.

“Oh my _god_ ,” he said, sitting up suddenly. “We really both were! Patrick! What if you’d hooked up with him in high school and just...never evolved beyond that?”

“Oh, I would have broken up with him after a couple of years, tops,” Patrick said, studying David’s face with amusement. “Or I would have killed him. Either way, it wouldn’t have lasted.”

“But you wouldn’t have stayed with Rachel for so long and then had to flee to Schitt’s Creek to get away from her!”

“Is that what I did?” Patrick said.

“Isn’t it?”

“Mmm, not exactly. Or...I don’t know, maybe it kind of was. Maybe I’d have found my way here for some other reason at just the right time, though. You never know.”

“So you think it was just...meant to be?” David made a highly skeptical face.

“No,” Patrick said, drawing him back down to his chest again. “I think we were lucky. That’s what I said: Everything that happened, exactly the way it did.”

“Except for this.” David reached up and touched his face, carefully and not very close to his torn lip.

“Even that, yeah. If it made you come and rescue me. Totally worth it.”

David couldn’t agree to that, especially because what he wanted to do just then involved Patrick and his mouth being in complete working order. If he had been, though, they’d both be at work right now, he realized. He decided he’d settle for this less perfect version of events, the one in which he got to curl closer to his only slightly damaged one true love, and hold him tightly while they drifted in and out of easy dreams for the rest of the morning.


End file.
